
Brazilian foreign minister Mauro Vieira discarded that the recent agreements reached by Argentina with China can interfere with Mercosur, while his Argentine counterpart Hector Timerman said that the package of accords with Beijing will actually benefit Mercosur.

In her first appearance after being charged over the alleged cover-up of the AMIA terrorist attack, Argentine president Cristina Fernández, who has taken refuge at her home in Patagonia, was politically active participating in several public works inaugurations, but in no moment made reference to the case and promised to keep fighting.

Argentine president Cristina Fernandez will remain with the family at her private home in El Calafate, Patagonia, most of next week thus avoiding the Wednesday 18 February 'silent march' organized by prosecutors and judicial unions on the month of special prosecutor Alberto Nisman's still unsolved death.

The Argentine prosecutor who took over the investigation of the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires following the death of Alberto Nisman charged President Cristina Fernández for allegedly trying to cover up Iran's role in the attack.

Argentina's top officials will meet on Thursday with representatives from the Argentine Industrial Union, UIA, to discuss some clauses and aspects of the recent agreements signed between China and Argentina last week, and which have been questioned by the manufacturers' lobby.

US holders of defaulted Argentine bonds have stepped up their campaign for full repayment of their loans by detailing how 14 senior Argentine officials experienced “dramatic and often unexplained increases” in their personal wealth during service in the Kirchner administrations.

By Uki Goñi - Political “suicides” are so common in Argentina that a special word has been invented for them. Ask different people in Buenos Aires today and they may disagree whether the crusading prosecutor Alberto Nisman was murdered or took his own life. But most everyone will concur that Mr. Nisman was “suicided,” the latest victim of a dark-power centrifuge that with sinister regularity spews out dead bodies in this divided nation.

Following the publication of an article in the British press under the heading of “Democracy in Argentina dented by mysterious murder”, Argentine ambassador in London Alicia Castro, sent a letter to the editor of the Financial Times basically arguing that “our democracy is young, but not fragile” and describing the article as “most groundless and offensive” accusation.

By John Paul Rathbone (*) - The Financial Times Latin American editor, economist and knowledgeable of Argentina has written a column on the current situation in Argentina and the mystery surrounding the death of special prosecutor Alberto Nisman

Argentine prosecutors and the judicial employees union have officially called for a demonstration on February 18 marking a month since the death of Alberto Nisman who was in charge of investigating the bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center that killed 85 people back in 1994.